Tag Archives: Summer

Since its been awhile, here is a bit of a refresher: We were “homeless” during May 2013 as our lease at our previous apartment expired at the same time that articling completed (we planned it that way). We wanted to take advantage of not having to pay rent for the month as we wanted to travel anyways before coming back and diving into work. So we stored the majority of our stuff in a friends storage locker (thanks Katie!), and hit the road with our backpacks. We spent a couple of days at a place called the Rose Room in Toronto, went to Niagara-on-the-Lake for our friends’ wedding, went straight to Barbados from there, then Martinique, and then we came back to Toronto to visit with Davin’s parents and attend our call to the bar ceremonies.

When we left for Niagara-on-the-Lake and the Caribbean, the Rose Room let us store our bags with them as we had booked the same room for a couple days when we got back into town. It was really nice of them, and also convenient to have a bit of a home base to leave our colder weather items and our suits and robes for the call to the bar later in the month. So it was back to the Rose Room when we landed, which was starting to feel a bit like home by now 😀

We had a day before Davin’s parents arrived after we landed. It is kind of embarrassing, but Davin and I haven’t really spent much time actually exploring Toronto. Since we’ve been here work has been the primary focus. And both of us are prone to workaholic behaviour to begin with… So we took advantage of the down time and nice weather to act like tourists in the city that we hadn’t quite accepted as “ours” yet (writing this in hindsight – in Spring 2015 – it still feels strange to think of Toronto as “home”… the #westcoastbestcoast still imo…).

We did what I would suggest tourists-with-one-day-in-Toronto do, and wandered down Bay Street to Yonge-Dundas Square and Eaton’s Centre. There is always action in that area with street performances, big TV’s etc. Pretty much sensory overload, but fun to wander around and take it all in. Then on to Old City Hall which is a beautiful building. It was in danger of being demolished with the panning of Eaton’s Centre, but was declared a National Historic site in 1989. I’m glad as it is striking, and adds a nice architectural contrast in the downtown core. Davin prosecuted a few cased in the building under the Provincial Offences Act during articling and he liked walking up the big grand steps in the front after grabbing a coffee at the Starbucks across the street on a break 🙂 Here is Davin on the Bay Street side. The front of it is quite something and worth seeing, but we didn’t take a picture:

And us in the same spot with some tall Bay Street buildings in the background:

New City Hall (or just “City Hall”, I guess) and Nathan Phillips Square is right across the Street from Old City Hall. At the time it was the home of Toronto’s side show, Rob Ford. Now Mayor Tory has settled in, and I’m glad to see the back-door of that fiasco. It was hard to feel proud of our city with all the garbage that always surrounded that guy…

But City Hall is a beautiful building. For some reason I didn’t take a picture of it so here is a stock picture from Google:

And here is me with a bit of Nathan Phillips Square in the background. Great place. Has ice skating in the winter, and lots of food trucks all year ’round!

We walked down to Lake Ontario which has an “ok” water front (it’s not the Seawall). Coming from Vancouver and the Okanagan in B.C., it is really nice to have a large body of water close by. I don’t really know why, its not like we swim or go boating. But I just like the feeling of it. Davin LOVES ducks! He could sit and watch them all day I am sure. They have such interesting little social interactions, and get so worked up! I love the little quackers too ;p Here he is trying to convince one to come close enough to pet. They never come close enough to pet…

Davin has been wanting to do the Edge Walk at CN Tower since he heard about it. Me not so much. The Edge Walk is there they strap you into a harness and you get to walk around the OUTSIDE “circle part” of the CN Tower, almost 1200 feet above ground! Yeah, PASS… (http://www.edgewalkcntower.ca/more.html)

This is how he showed up to the Edge Walk, in khakis and a blazer (these pictures are all a little blurry because I was taking them behind glass):

Then you get all suited up:

Once you are ready to go…

You head outside. It was a perfect day for it. Great visibility all the way to Niagara Falls on the other side of Lake Ontario.

While Davin was outside clinging to the CN Tower by a harness, I was in the main observation area where they have a few TV’s that stream what is going on at the Edge Walk. So these pictures are mostly from what the TV was showing:

Exhilarating:

Testing out the harness strength…

Thinking of going hands free:

Hanging off the edge (that is the landing strip for the Billy Bishop downtown airport in the background)

He’s waving up at me here, but Im watching him on the TV!

This picture was taken looking down from the top observation pod. My plan was to go to the main circle part to snap a few pictures from the TV’s there, then head to the top pod to get a few live shots. Here Davin is hanging off the edge doing the “Napoleon pose”…

I thought this was a funny warning sign. Like I would EVER climb on glass when it is the only thing in between me and a 1200 foot drop…

I hung out in the pod until Davin was done and then he came up to meet me. His hair is nice and wind blown, and I’m happy to have him back in one peice.

The view from the top was really spectacular

Looking south east over Lake Ontario

Overlooking Rogers stadium where the Jay’s play. I like this picture because we caught the shadow of the CN Tower too.

Looking south west at Billy Bishop Airport and Lake Ontario

And of course the glass floor where you look down onto Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Aquarium: